


Awakening

by clgfanfic



Category: War of the Worlds (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-19
Updated: 2013-02-19
Packaged: 2017-11-29 19:38:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/690677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clgfanfic/pseuds/clgfanfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What it was like to wake up... from an alien's point of view.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Awakening

**Author's Note:**

> Originally published in the zine Green Floating Weirdness #6 under the pen name Laura Grigsby and Gillian Holt.

_"We must wake the others."_

 

          Consciousness, like a small pocket of stale air, bubbled up through the thick blackness, exploding weakly at the surface in a fizzle of dull color.  Where was he?

          Distant echoes vibrated through him, cold and disorientating as the absence of the others in his consciousness.

          He probed, the search becoming more frantic until he felt the feeble shudder in his being, marking the presence of two others.  They were weak, so very weak, and he felt fear.  What if they died and he was left alone?

          As sensation returned he felt the pain begin, the cramped aching of a body long unused.  In the darkness there was nothing but the pain and the growing throb of consciousness as the other two began to wake.

          He had been asleep.  For how long, he wondered, opening his single tri-part eye only to have a thick, viscous fluid drain into it.  He blinked back the stinging goo.

          Reaching out, he groped for the source of the liquid dribbling thick over him, his fingers splaying in the cool night air.

          Air.  He could breathe again, but it was so cramped…

          He pressed upward, felt his metal prison fall, and clawing, forced his way outside.

          To weak to stand, he railed silently against the indignity as he was forced to crawl behind a barricade of metal prisons.  The enemy was out there.

          Lying on the dirt, he reached out, touching the cold surfaces of the tiny prisons that entombed his companions.  The consciousnesses of the other two were growing stronger, and he mentally stretched out, touching them, reveling in the linkage and the recognition.  He was far from complete, but it was a beginning.  Finally, he was not alone.

          In the distance he could detect sounds, the presence of humans, the vermin who had imprisoned him.

          Pain subsiding, he climbed slowly to his feet, stretching.  It was time to aid the others, then begin the conquest of the planet.  Their mission would succeed.

          Two hands, straining through the melting surfaces of the barrels, greeted him.  Carefully he pulled the two containers onto their sides and waited while his comrades crawled free.  Helping the female to her feet – he could spare her the indignity – he guided them back to the safety behind the wall of barrels.

He waited while the pair rested, then signaled them to their feet, shoulders touching, to begin the reconstitution of their shared consciousness.

          The explosion of color and awareness threatened to overwhelm them all, but they rode out the tumult, clinging to their collective self until the distortions subsided.  They were one.  The Advocacy.

          "We must wake the others," the female said, her voice screeching from disuse.

          "Yes, but only three, we have no time until we know where we are and what they have done to us."

          The second male nodded his agreement.

          Moving quietly, the threesome returned to their empty barrels.

          "The liquid draining out of those containers eats away our prison shells," the female observed.

          "Yes," the first to wake replied.  "If we move more of our brethren under this freeing liquid they will be free as well."

          The pair nodded.

          In the distance human voices drifted across the landscape on the night breeze, speaking of victory.

          "Soon we will need their bodies," the second male stated.

          "Yes, soon," the first replied.  "And we will be whole again."


End file.
